COVID-19 Cases, Hospitalizations See Drop In Nation & Oklahoma

Health officials have shared some good news for the first time in a while, COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations both on a downward trend. Oklahoma has gone from 3rd in the nation to 10th for new cases of COVID-19. But doctors have urged people to still proceed with caution.

"Nationwide there has been a 10% reduction in cases in the last week or so,” said Dr. Dale Bratzler, the Chief COVID Officer at OU Health.

One week ago, we were at 103 cases per 100,000 people every day, today that number is 67 cases.

As for our seven-day rolling average as of Friday we sit at 2,564 cases per day. Whereas nine days ago that number was 4,256 which was a 40% reduction.

The downward trend is something Aaron Wendelboe, an associate professor of epidemiology, has predicted could keep going.

“It's a mix of factors,” said Wendelboe. “Of the natural buildup of herd immunity and the current mitigation efforts and the vaccination that is happening. If we as a society continue as things have been for the last several months, we can see a steady decline in cases.”

Which in return will cause a drop in hospitalizations, which we have also seen.

One thing that hasn't shown a decline yet is deaths, but doctors said that lags behind due to patients lengthy stays in the hospitals and ICUs.

State health officials said vaccinations also have played a modest role in the decline, but said we need to double our daily vaccinations to really see a difference.